Bad Romance(BOOK 2)

Chapter 24-The Climb

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves...

Jared had no clue about what was going on at the bottom of El Capitan. He had just finished setting up his tent and had his earphones at full blast.

As he threw the last twig in the fire he shuffled through his playlists and took a seat on a dirty blanket he always carried with him. He saw a playlist he didn't recognize before. It was called simply 'A'Covers'.

He remembered Anka had the habit of categorizing her playlists with different emojis and initials. As he tapped the playlist open a song by Louisa Johnson popped on screen. But it wasn't the original version of the song.

Jared recognized Anka's voice and shuffled through the playlist. It was all covers that she done. He remembered making the playlist himself. For some reason she never liked listening to her own voice on recording, except from the time she was in the studio. But he did. Jared started smiling, because she reminded him a lot about the aversion he had for watching his own work.

He had no idea what had going on behind him.

Anka on the other hand climbed nearly 200 meters. She had her phone set to track how far she has climbed. It was getting harder and harder for her to find safe points as night fell. She wanted to look down but remembered the one thing that everyone says in movies: not to look down. It soon started to get into her reflex to put draws, carabiners, webbing and everything there was hanging from her to create a safety point.

"Are you okay up there?", asked Shannon as he saw her stop.

"Yes.", she said looking up to the top of the cliff.

It was getting harder and harder to pull up her weight, as well, but the only thought she had going through her head was that Jared was at the top. And that she had to get there.

She yelled at Shannon that she was going to put her earphones on. Somehow to her music always made things a lot easier. She put her playlist on shuffle and music blasted out of the earphones. Her tiredness faded as she heard Jared's voice singing back to her, she felt a lot more energetic and prepared.

She started being quicker and quicker at climbing the mountain top, but at one point she became too confident and her leg slip.

Anka grabbed onto the harness tighter, but in her slip she hit herself in the rocks. She swore she could feel her phone crack in her pocket. She stopped herself from dangling as she put her right foot against the wall, forcing her balance to reach a stop.

As she took off an earphone she heard Shannon's scream.

"I'm okay. I'm okay! But damn it Jay owns me a new phone.", she said jokingly, trying to mask the fact that she was wobbling in pain on the inside.

Anka managed to rip two of her fingernails when she lost balance and she could feel the blood dripping down her palm. She looked into one of the best pockets Tommy gave her and found some bandaids and some tape, alongside some chalk to prevent her hand from slipping again. That had to do for now.

Shannon was looking at her from the bottom of the mountain helpless, but still he couldn't stop admiring her braveness and madness. He looked at his phone and lifted up so he can get some signal. It was nearly midnight and he knew his mother would be worried sick.

"Nearly there little one, nearly there...", he whispered to himself, as he said the first prayer in a long, long time.

It was around half six in the morning when Anka reached the top. Given the fact that she wasn't a professional climber and the only thing she ever climbed in her life was a tree when she was a kid, eight and a half hours of nearly non stop climbing could've been easily considered a record. With the last remaining strength she managed to lift herself up the peak.